


The Princess Maura Society

by E_Rocc



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-10-08 08:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17382878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Rocc/pseuds/E_Rocc
Summary: A little help for a newcomer





	1. Chapter 1

Two young Countesses, neither of whom had been born Vor, approached the Empress’s suite. 

Olivia Vorrutyer couldn’t help but smile at Jennifer Vorfolse’s open mouthed gaping at the décor. 

“We had one of greatest art museums on Earth in Cleveland, believe it or not. It was near campus. Plus I’ve been to the Smithsonian and the Louvre. This is comparable. And no one gets to see it?!”

“That was true in the past. The Empress has changed that. Most of the pieces here have been in museums lately. There’s a steady rotation in these halls now. Less militaristic as well. 

Though I should say ‘Countess Vorbarra’. That is actually who you will be meeting for tea today. Along with my aunt, and a couple others. “

Jenn was confused. “I thought I was meeting with the Empress? I wish you were joining us, Liv. I would be completely lost in this place without you. I had hardly even heard of it before I met Rob. Except in fairy tales.”

“You are meeting Laisa Toscane Vorbarra. She has two roles. Officially, anyway. Gregor has always liked to use his “Count Vorbarra” role for what he calls “circus minimization”. Laisa has followed suit. 

I wouldn’t fit into this group. You’ll see. For example, I just called him “Gregor”. I really shouldn’t do that, but I’ve known him since I was a little girl. Ah, here we are.”

“Vicereine, I’d like to present Countess Jennifer Vorfolse. Countess, this is Vicereine and Countess Dowager Cordelia Vorkosigan.”

“Cordelia, please. And you too Olivia, getting awfully formal aren’t we?”

“Working at it, Aunt Cordelia. I have a pretty good tutor at such things.”

Cordelia had to admit, “This is true.

Jennifer. This doesn’t seem real to you yet, does it?”

The new Countess replied “No, ma’am. Not at all. Six months ago, I was graduating from college. On Earth.”

“It’s Cordelia, Jennifer. Technically, at least on this planet, we are of equal rank.”

“Even the whole rank thing seems strange. Like something out of history.”

“It is. But you’ll be fine. I’ve found that egalitarians handle aristocracies just fine as long as they get to be the aristocrats.

As for the other strangeness: Welcome to the Princess Maura Society. Let’s join the others.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Easy, no need for that right now”, Countess Vorbarra assured the young woman attempting to curtsey. 

Awkwardly. Laisa couldn’t resist a grin at what Lady Alys would have thought. She glanced at her stepmother in law. Yep. Thinking alike again. Dangerous. And not now. Let’s not shock the new girl yet. 

“Gregor and I take on the Count and Countess role for a reason. At this time, you and I are on equal terms. Informally, when the Princess Maura Society meets, we all are.”

“Sorry, your maj…..errrr…..Countess. I’m still pretty much a small town girl from Ohio. Umm……Earth.”

“Marion, Ohio, North American Union, to be precise.” Cordelia volunteered. “I still don’t know why that town sounds familiar”.

“Not much happens there, ma’am.”

“Cordelia. Please.”

“And I am Laisa. No need to refer to me by the title we share. Let me introduce the other members.

This is Lady Mia Vorob’yev. Formerly of the Vervani diplomatic corps. Currently married to Lord Michel Vorob’yev, the Foreign Minister. For now.

Mia, how is your father in law?”

The dark haired woman’s sunny expression darkened a bit. “I’ll be a Countess too soon”.

“So I had heard. Sorry.”

Mia nodded.

Laisa indicated the final woman of the room, a very tall woman who except for cinammon skin and a large chest appeared almost pure Cetagandan haut.

“This is Lady Tej Vorpatril. Originally a Jacksonian baronette. Her husband Ivan is a hereditary lord. As he’s my cousin in law, he’s also the deputy foreign minister. Seemingly, he’ll be promoted soon.”

Tej took her hand and said “Welcome to Barrayar. Glad to be able to say that to someone else. Ivan is on Pol at the Hegen Alliance Conference, but he’s very anxious to meet and thank Count Vorfolse.”

Laisa commented “He’s very *relieved* to. When Count Stefan passed without heir or will, Gregor considered appointing him to the role. To say he was reticent is putting it mildly.

It was a near thing too. Apparently the Count did his best to keep anyone from knowing the old Count’s youngest son escaped to Earth from serving at the Aslund embassy when Vordarian tried his coup. He might have inherited over a mere second cousin himself, had he been available.”

“I only knew my father in law briefly. He was a rather strange man. He was afraid Barrayaran agents would take him back to be impaled. Literally. He went by an assumed name. Rob resumed the family name after he passed, but more out of pride and defiance than anything else. His dad had told him he was about 17th in line for the countship and being of half Earth blood would disqualify him. He never pressed it, though he knows a lot of your …..our……history.”

“Actually, Count Vorkosigan is of 5/8 Betan blood.”, Cordelia commented. The eighth comes from Princess Maura, my husband’s grandmother and our group’s namesake. Originally of the Betan trade ministry.”

In an aside to Laisa, she commented “Count Vorfolse’s paternal grandmother was a Vorrutyer”.

Countess Vorfolse continued “When the Embassy contacted Rob, he was nervous about it. Asked NAU security to sit in. I have never seen him so stunned as when he came home, with the ImpSec escort in tow. Not even when he passed the PE exam. Rob sells himself short.”

Laisa commented “I cannot tell you how thrilled Gregor was to have an Earth trained professional engineer inherit. The South Continent in general, and your district in particular, really need someone like him. Meanwhile, you majored in art history?

“Yes. In fact, I met Rob at the art museum. They had a display of some Barrayaran artifacts from a bunker they found here. I was interning and he was asked to consult.”

Jennifer noted how the other three woman all looked at Tej.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey! That was my family. I had noth, errrr…..it wasn’t my idea….errrr….”

Cordelia asked Jenn, “You were involved with the curation of the display when it visited your museum. What did you think of the official explanation of providence?”

“It seemed quite vague Vicer…..errr….Countess…..err Cordelia”, Jenn noted that her eyebrow finally dropped with the last. “The works were said to be found in an undiscovered bunker in Vorbarr Sultana. Central Vorbarr Sultana. The obvious question, of course, was how it was discovered. After so much time in the center of one of the Nexus’s busiest cities.”

“That was kept rather vague on purpose. “

“I asked Rob on our first date what he thought happened. He said that the old Imperial Security headquarters sank at about the same time. He had some not nice things to say about the appearance of that building, and said there were some accidents during construction. He figured the drainage in the area was similarly bad, things started collapsing, but the Cetagandan bunker, being built by Cetagandans, remained intact and was revealed. He wasn’t surprised that the Barrayarans kept it secret. He said ImpSec would classify the laws of physics if they thought they could.”

Cordelia almost stifled a snort.

Laisa was the one to reply. “Old Dono Vorrutyer was the architect. Count Vorfolse will likely have a different opinion once he gets a chance to review his work. The headquarters actually sank intact, which is why Cordelia’s uncountly son was able to raise and restore it. He was mad, not incompetent.

Rob’s ideas were quite good as well, indeed they were what ImpSec hoped would become the consensus. But the bunker was discovered first.”

Jenn noted everyone glancing at Lady Tej again. Smirking.

“Tej, are you of Cetagandan ancestry?”

“My grandmother is haut. My grandfather was a ghem general. Here, as a matter of fact.”

Jenn began to ask a question, then decided better.

_She’s sharp_ , thought the Vicereine. This could be interesting.


	4. Chapter 4

“So when I got here, we had just come out of a war. At least half of what I knew about Barrayar was propaganda. War propaganda. The rest was mostly left over from the Time of Isolation. I spent most of my time confused and put my foot in my mouth on a regular basis. ”

“I typically just don’t say much, Cordelia. Rob tries to be helpful, but he studied the history a lot more than the current culture. He is confused as much as I am. People don’t call him out on it, but…”

“He’s a sitting Count. No one would dare. I got some of the same coverage from Aral’s position, even when he was just an Heir instead of Regent. Also from other things.”

Laisa could not resist “Fear of decapitation, she means.”

Cordelia replied “Well yes, that. I eventually deduced that I had gained their respect. Through events where I had no good choices, as it was. But Aral once observed that was how it usually happens, and if anyone would know….”

“Cordelia was in turn a big help to me when I first arrived.”, Mia added. “I spent two years on Cetaganda as the Ambassador’s wife, after having been with the Vervani embassy for three. I thought I had some idea of what to expect, but I didn’t really. It was fortunate that I had met Miles there and established the connection. Between us, we were able to help out Laisa.”

“I arrived as part of a trade delegation. While Komarr has been part of the Imperium for a couple of generations now, cultural integration has only recently begun taking root. Barrayarans were considered somewhere on a spectrum from villainous to exotic to bumbling. Sometimes all three.

Much of what I ‘knew’ came from romance novels. It was eye opening. “

“Eye opening for me happened later,” Tej observed. “If there’s such a thing as ambush romance, that’s what happened to me. I thought I was marrying a middling Barrayaran officer. Temporarily. To escape some nasty people who wanted to kidnap me. The next thing I know, I’m meeting his cousin. Who just happens to be the absolute ruler of three planets.”

Cordelia noticed that Jenn had basically clammed up. “Jenn, I think you were starting to say something, before this callous bunch of aristocrats cut you off.”

“Oh, I don’t quite remember anymore. Sometimes it’s easier to just be quiet and observe.”

“Gregor says that’s 90% of leadership. But it’s important to appear wise and serene instead of confused and clueless.”, Laisa commented.

“We’re the Princess Maura Society, after all. That’s what Aral’s grandma did for decades. According to him. Even my father in law said she often looked at the world like some sort of abstract play where she was part of the audience, not the cast.”

“It took me awhile,” Mia said. “But I got there. You will too. We’ll help”.


	5. Origins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Society learns of some freshly unearthed history.

“I really do appreciate it. This all takes a lot of getting used to. Even for Rob, though he won’t admit it.”

Mia replied first, “Men never admit to such things. I didn’t really either. We were off planet for two years before we finally moved back here permanently. I studied a lot. Michel tried to help but so much was just second nature to him that he missed it.”

Tej cracked “Hell, I was completely lost. I thought Ivan was just a middling officer at first. I had a pretty good teacher in my mother in law though. I’m probably very lucky she Approved of me.”

“Aral helped me a lot too. As did Alys and even Kareen.”

“What’s really odd is I occasionally run into something that seems familiar, but I can’t place my finger on why. From different parts of the culture too. We’re mixed down there on South Continent, no single ethnic group dominates.”

Cordelia shook her head. “We really need to get you into Professora Vorthys’s class. That would probably be the most helpful. It makes all the sense in the world if you know history.”

“Well I studied some of it when I started getting serious with Rob. To get to where he was coming from. We never expected to come here.”

“Did you learn about the Firsters at all?”

“Not so much. It seemed like little was known about them, except they came from four primary ethnic groups: Russian, French, English, and Greek.”

Cordelia agreed, “Yes, that was true until very recently. Tej’s family’s doing again.”

“Huh??”

“Oh yes, Tej. I just had lunch with Professora Vorthys the other day. Jenn, I misspoke on this one, while you should sit in her class, this is new.

One of the things found in the bunker was the memoirs of Rasputin Barra. He was one of the original settlers from Earth. He was also involved in the suppressing of the history, here. When the wormhole collapsed it was felt that history before then would be distracting. On Earth of course it became more and more obscure.

Laisa, I don’t think even Gregor has heard this yet.

The settlement group was a consortium of sorts. Refugees from their home countries, for various reasons. Russia was going through a hyper religious phase, England an antimonarchical, the Greeks were becoming a minority in their own nation, and the French have always had their factions. None of these groups could afford their own expedition. But together they could, and figured the planet was big enough for all of them.

Refugees, especially European ones, often ended up in one place before space travel became commonplace. And the expedition was one of the first.

The Firsters came from North America, Jenn. Not originally. But they had all lived there for years. Some were even born there. 

So even though it’s been a millennium, some of your ways will certainly seem familiar.”

“Especially on the South Continent”, Laisa observed. “Historically on Barrayar, it’s where everyone went that didn’t exactly fit in where they settled. Before Sergyar, that is. So it’s going to be a mix of sorts”.

Cordelia had a thought. “Sergyar is similar now. Perhaps you and Rob should visit.”

Laisa added, “I’m due for a visit. Maybe the Society should take a field trip”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been observed by reviewers that despite its monarchy and hierarchical nature, Barrayar seems a rather Americanized place. Which makes sense with an American author. Here's a possible reason, and a diversion. And now I must re-read GJatRQ. :)

**Author's Note:**

> This one might be slow, I'm a guy with Aspergers trying to write about female characters. :) But I like the idea and it's kind of detailed for a prompt.


End file.
